Monday, July 28, 2008

ROME, JULY 28, 2008 - Twenty-five doctors are appealing to Italian courts for the life of a 37-year-old woman who has come to be known as Italy's Terri Schiavo.

Eluana Englaro was condemned to death by starvation by a Milan court earlier this month. The decision was a new development in a near 10-year court battle waged by her father, who seeks to deny her hydration and nourishment.

The Traditional Latin Mass (aka as the Extraordinary form of the Mass) is celebrated at Cathedral of the Holy Cross, Boston, every Sunday at 11:00 AM.

As a parishioner, it is my privilege to welcome those who formerly participated in this Mass at the now suppressed Holy Trinity Church. I realize the space isn't exactly what you're used to, but we're trying our best...and it's an inspiration to see you all each Sunday.

Thursday, July 24, 2008

If you've had an abortion...if you are the loved one of a woman who has aborted...if you have no personal experience with abortion...if you are a pro-life worker...if you are pro-choice...if you have no real viewpoint on the subject...

Monday, July 21, 2008

An editorial written by Republican presidential hopeful McCain has been rejected by the NEW YORK TIMES -- less than a week after the paper published an essay written by Obama, the DRUDGE REPORT has learned.

The paper's decision to refuse McCain's direct rebuttal to Obama's 'My Plan for Iraq' has ignited explosive charges of media bias in top Republican circles.

'It would be terrific to have an article from Senator McCain that mirrors Senator Obama's piece,' NYT Op-Ed editor David Shipley explained in an email late Friday to McCain's staff. 'I'm not going to be able to accept this piece as currently written.'

Sunday, July 20, 2008

Somehow, The Globe got the memo that there ain't no such animal as Catholic "women priests"...even in Boston.

In yesterday's "For the record" section (the title of which is a euphemism for "We screwed up") we read:

The main headline on a report in yesterday's City and Region section may have led to the erroneous impression that three women will be recognized as priests by the Roman Catholic Church after their ordination tomorrow. As the report and a subordinate headline made clear, the women's status after the ordination is a matter of dispute. Although the organization hosting the ceremony will consider the women to be Catholic priests, the Vatican and the Archdiocese of Boston will regard them as having excommunicated themselves and therefore as being neither Catholic nor priests.

Close, but no cigar. The publication has a ways to go. The above was carefully noted as a "clarification" rather than a "correction," and the women's status after the sham ceremony is not a matter of dispute at all. Within its own "clarification," The Globe errs when it writes the words "after their ordination." (Even the AP has taken to putting the word "ordination" in quotation marks.)

And it wasn't just the headline that needed correcting, excuse me, "clarifying."

In the body of the story, I count at least five instances of inaccuracies identical to the story's headline (which called for "clarification").

Friday, July 18, 2008

According to consumer psychologist Kit Yarrow, Gramm was on to something.

"I think the way consumers feel about things is very emotional," Yarrow told "Good Morning America" today. "Those emotions are trumping reality, creating a snowball, which makes the economy worse. It's not as bad as consumers feel like it is."

* * * * *

"We've had great prosperity for the last few years," Yarrow said. "We had very cheap gas. We've had a lot of increase in our home values. We've had it really pretty good as the stock market increases. Emotion is always caused by this mismatch between what we perceive and reality. It's really emotion, the psychology, that's contributing to our economy right now in a negative way."

* * * * *In an interview with the Washington Times this week, Gramm agreed.

"We've never been more dominant; we've never had more natural advantages than we have today. ... Misery sells newspapers," he said. "Thank God the economy is not as bad as you read in the newspaper every day."

* * * * *

Personally, I — as one who has, as my good friend points out to me, "difficulties" paying her debts — see much more sense in the above comments than I do in the...well, whining. One reason I have "difficulties" paying my bills is simple: the work isn't rolling in as it was several years ago and I haven't been running out to get it.

Evidently the McCain camp doesn't see it this way. Or perhaps Mr. Gramm is just one hell of a stand up guy. In any case:

"It is clear to me that Democrats want to attack me rather than debate Senator McCain on important economic issues facing the country," Gramm said. "That kind of distraction hurts not only Senator McCain's ability to present concrete programs to deal with the country's problems, it hurts the country. To end this distraction and get on with the real debate, I hereby step down as co-chair of the McCain campaign and join the growing number of rank-and-file McCain supporters."

"I don't know why I have cancer," Tony wrote in Christianity Today last year, "and I don't much care." He continued, "We don't know how the narrative of our lives will end but we get to choose how to use the interval between now and the moment we meet our Creator face to face.

"Those who have been stricken enjoy the special privilege of being able to fight with their might, main and faith to live — no matter how their days may be numbered."

Tuesday, July 15, 2008

The Massachusetts Senate today passed a bill that would repeal a 1913 state law that prevents gay and lesbian couples from most other states from marrying [sic] in Massachusetts.

***

"There are very few laws on the books that I can say that I'm ashamed that they're on the books," said State Senator Mark Montigny, a New Bedford Democrat. He said he opposed the law because of the "immorality of discrimination."

Mark, you oppose the law because you're a politician. Cut the !@#.

"This is a very simple law, contrived in shame, and it exists in shame and we ought to wipe it off the books," he said.

Funny you should say that. I feel the same way about the Massachusetts Ridiculous Supreme Court decision called "Goodridge vs. the Department of Public Health."

"The 1913 law is a shadow, a terrible shadow. It represents a segregationist past that is best put to rest and put to rest quickly," said Senator Harriette Chandler, a Worcester Democrat.

Hey, Harriette, babe...you -- or your predecessors -- shoulda thought of that earlier. But then, you guys really didn't care about that "shadow" (your word, not mine) before, did you?

(The law in question originated when Massachusetts tried to prevent interracial couples from crossing into their lily-white state to marry. So much for The Commonwealth's Much Vaunted History of Tolerance.)

Okay, Mark, Harriette, et al: quick question:

How come it took you guys — and by "you guys" I mean the much hailed (erroneously, if anybody has ever, for example, lived in Boston already knows) Liberal Folks for Equal Rights for People of Color almost a century to repeal the law???

Don't know? I didn't think so.

Another question:

Since most states still don't recognize same-sex "marriage," what good will this move do? For the folks you're trying to "help," I mean. Because once they go back home, chances are their "marriage" won't really be worth bleep. Don't care? I didn't think so.

So what's the point?

"Well, Kelly...it's all that wedding cake income, for crying out loud!"

Ah, yes! I'd forgotten, forgive me. And double shame on me, since the story appeared just today (July 15) in today's City Section of The Boston Globe.

A few hilarious, except they're so sad, snippets...on the "boomlet":

A study conducted for the state's Executive Office of Housing and Economic Development predicts that an economic boomlet in hotel bookings, banquets, and wedding cakes would result from repealing a 1913 state law that prevents gay and lesbian couples from most other states from marrying in Massachusetts.

Morality, personal liberty, and constitutional law have been the usual battlegrounds in the fight over gay marriage. Now Governor Deval Patrick's administration is injecting something a bit more pedestrian to the debate: economic development.

Way to fight for "equality," Deval...you capitalist devil, you!

Consider these numbers: An estimated 32,200 same-sex couples from elsewhere would travel to the state to get married over the next three years. That would pump $111 million into the economy and yield another $5 million in marriage license fees and sales and occupancy taxes.

Hey, that's the way to show How Much We Care about our homosexual friends. Tax 'em! It's a Massachusetts tradition, after all...make 'em feel like "family."

And, incidentally, rob California of those wealthy New Yorkers!

The study [performed -- surprise! -- by a group which studies stuff like this] considered a host of factors, including the percentage (roughly half) of the 22,000 same-sex Massachusetts couples counted by the US Census Bureau who have married here already, the typical expenditures for tourists visiting the state for two days and one night, and the likelihood that most same-sex New Yorkers wishing to marry - given that Governor David Paterson in May directed all state agencies there to recognize same-sex marriages performed in other states - would travel to Massachusetts, not California, for their vows.

Sunday, July 13, 2008

Let an experienced crossword puzzle constructor (published in The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, The Wall Street Journal, Simon & Schuster Puzzle books and other publications) add zip to your company newsletters and other collateral pieces.

If you haven't read Canadian born and bread George Peate's open letter to that country's General Governor over the Order of Canada presented Henry Morgentaler (whose claim to fame is facilitating mass abortions), then I wish you would.

By the way...I truly ache for pro-life folks like George who are ashamed, or at least feel ashamed right now, of their country. After about 40 million legal child murders in my own homeland, I can understand this sense of bewilderment, and yes, shame.

But I hope they come to realize that it's not their country they should feel ashamed of. Rather, it's the liberal, "me first, morality last" mentality they need to fight. Every day, every hour, every second, while praying for the souls of those people who would sell theirs to the devil if the ink was good enough. But I think they know that already.

Wednesday, July 09, 2008

Dr. Lorraine Murray, Ph.D, accounts her trip from Catholicism to radical feminism, and back again in this Zenit interview.

Two great hints on lovingly shepherding:

I believe it is crucial for priests, who have received extensive education in theology, to take active roles in parish RCIA programs. Converts to the faith should become well-schooled in the teachings of orthodox Catholicism, so they will really understand the beliefs they are embracing.

I also would love to see more priests leading occasional “refresher” courses open to all parishioners, because many people in the pews are eager to defend their faith but lack the tools to do so. Lay Catholics need to have a copy of “The Catechism of the Catholic Church” handy and to consult it often.

Get it? The key word is PRIESTS. I'm sorry to have to say this, but I'm very weary of lay people in charge of RCIA "programs." I'm especially weary of lay people not owning — much less eager for access to — the Catechism of the Catholic Church.

This does not make me a bad person.

This, however, makes me an alert person, to some degree, at least.

Am I saying "Lay People are Bad People?"

Not in the least. I'm a Lay Person myself.

Okay, bad example.

What I mean is, many, many, MANY Lay People are Good People. The Gospel, the Word of God, tells us that we all have the obligation to spread the Good News.

One thing, though?

Too many Lay People get it screwed up.

Actually, so do too many priests, but that's a different blog. Why? Because, just to name one reason, priests are gifted by the Holy Spirit in more ways than we are. Priests know better. If a priest screws up, it's a good chance it's deliberate. If a Lay Person errs, it might be an honest mistake — or a dishonest lie, I don't know.

I do know that I used to work with an RCIA program in my parish, where, among other novelties, folks were "encouraged" to criticize the Words of Christ.

Example: Matthew 19:9

I remember distinctly a woman opining that she "disagreed with this Gospel." I looked toward the Lay Man in Charge (actually, he was a seminarian) for, surely, his correction of the lady's "opinion" but in vain. Alas, time was up, class was over.

Yeah, yeah, I know, this is just one example.

I've got more, and so, I've no doubt, have you.

I am bloody sick and tired of hearing that "lay people must take the place of priests."

BULL !@#$%^&*())))_*&&^%$#$##!!!!!!!!

It simply cannot be done.

In today's Gospel (Matthew 10:1-7) we learn that Jesus called the first apostles. While all of them weren't the greatest, all of them were chosen. Chosen! As are, as the fathers comment, their successors.

Ask the Father for good priests, for Heaven's sake.

Another thing I'm tired of? In the Mass Intercessions? The way the prayers are carefully worded (because, of course, we're not really praying to God, oh no, we're massaging each other) when it comes to praying for vocations to absolutely not omit the vocations of Marriage, The Single Life, and all that crap.

Huh? Come on, people!

Of course you know as well as I do that I'm not dissing the vocations of Marriage and The Single Life. But that's not why these intercessions are made.

They're made because we'd rather avoid antagonizing The Lay People than publicly admit to Our Father that what we really need down here is PRIESTS!!! You know, the male kind! The ones who answer Christ's call!

Please. Pray for more good men to hear the call of Christ to the priesthood. Thank you.

LONDON, July 7 (Reuters) - The Church of England's governing body confirmed on Monday it will ordain women bishops but also approved measures to accommodate traditionalist opponents.

* * * *

After six hours of debate over the direction to be taken by the 450-year-old church, the solution hammered out by the synod was a typical Anglican compromise that sought to avoid a mass walkout by opponents of women bishops.

I pray they will walk out and come back to the 2,000+ year old Church.

Friday, July 04, 2008

In an article in Canada's Calgary Herald published today, July 4, Susana Martinuk writes:

Dr. (I use this term loosely) Morgentaler made abortion 'legal' through a challenge to the Supreme Court. The Court struck down the law against abortion in 1988. Twenty years later, Canada still has no law against abortion at any time during gestation, but we do have an international reputation for having the most liberal abortion policies in the developed world. Apparently, this is something to be celebrated.

He made abortion available. His great healthcare legacy is a chain of private abortion clinics where doctors can make great wads of cash outside of the medical/ethical oversight of hospital committees and other doctors.

Finally, he is credited with making abortion safe. He said this week that his efforts made abortion "one of the safest surgical procedures" and women are no longer killed, injured or left infertile.

Tuesday, July 01, 2008

RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — Catholic leaders in Richmond are apologizing after a mix up enabled a 16-year-old illegal immigrant in a Catholic charity's care to get an abortion with help from charity staffers.

What "mix-up," you ask?

Good question.

First, let it be know that Bishop DiLorenzo has apologized.

"I express my profound apology for the loss of life of one of the most vulnerable among us," DiLorenzo wrote.

And continues:

"And I apologize for the profound embarrassment this has caused the Catholic Diocese of Richmond, and Catholics throughout the United States."

Embarrassment?

Try this test.

Substitute the words "sexual abuse" for the words "loss of life" in the Bishop's apology and how do you think his words would be accepted? (You don't have to change a thing in the second paragraph...the result would be the same.)

And this gets much, much worse.

The bishop had advance knowledge of the January procedure, but he said he was told by the charity's executive director, Joanne Nattrass, that there was nothing they could do to intervene.

Nattrass issued a statement saying she learned Jan. 17 that the girl was scheduled to have an abortion the next morning.

The information was relayed to the bishop, who Nattrass said replied that "I forbid this to happen." But Nattrass said she and other authorities were led to believe they could not stop it.

Could somebody explain this to me?

Could somebody explain this to folks, say, belonging to Operation Rescue, for example, who have stopped many an abortion?

Could somebody explain to me why Nattrass and DiLorenzo couldn't have presented themselves at the charity offices that night to forbid the action?

This killing (and no, I don't mean "mix-up") is far more horrendous (and no, I don't mean "embarrassing") then any story of clergy sexual abuse I've ever heard. And I live in Boston and have heard plenty.

Two children in Virginia were horrifically abused, with the cooperation of Catholic Church leadership. One is a living, albeit wounded, 16-year-old immigrant girl. One is a dead baby.

Outcry, anybody? Shall I expect the so-called "survivors' supporters" to raise the roof?